With the development of electronic technologies, various types of electronic apparatuses have been developed and distributed. Receiving apparatuses such as televisions (TV's) are examples of such electronic apparatuses.
As the performance of the TV has improved in recent years, the TV can provide multimedia content such as three-dimensional (3D) content. Since the 3D content includes a left-eye image and a right-eye image, the 3D content has a large size in comparison with that of a two dimensional (2D) content.
However, a transmission bandwidth used in a broadcast network is limited. In order to provide a 3D content through a single broadcast network, a content provider should reduce resolution. However, this creates a problem because the image quality deteriorates.
To address these problems, a method that transmits a left-eye image and a right-eye image through different paths and reproduces 3D content by combining the left-eye image and the right-eye image at a receiving apparatus has been discussed.
The receiving apparatus synchronizes the left-eye image and the right-eye image with reference to a time stamp of each image, that is, a presentation time stamp (PTS). Accordingly, time stamps of two images should be exactly consistent with each other in order to perform synchronization normally. However, if separate transmitting apparatuses generate a left-eye image and a right-eye image or if a left-eye image and a right-eye image are generated at different times, time stamps of two images are rarely consistent with each other. Accordingly, there is a problem in that it is difficult to synchronize the left-eye image and the right eye image that are transmitted and received separately.
Therefore, there is a need for a method of reproducing a high-resolution multimedia content at a receiving apparatus by effectively synchronizing the left-eye image and the right eye image that are transmitted and received separately.